Recommendation for a good book on English Grammar.

  • Elements of Style* is rubbish. Strunk had some good ideas. White was a good writer. But neither knew much about grammar, and the book has done more damage than good. See advice about passive voice, split infinitives (at least we can’t blame that one on Strunk), adverb placement, etc.

If the OP wants to learn about grammar, any intro linguistics book that covers syntax will teach you infinitely more than this slop foisted on students by ignorant English teachers, who typically have no linguistics training. I find Napoli’s particularly accessible, if eccentric.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread.

To go a different direction, Rex Barks is a fun diagramming text. If you work your way through it, you’ll have a fantastic understanding of the teaching grammar (which is different than linguistic grammar, but is very functional).